Market Technicians Association (MTA)

(http://www.mta.org/)

(This thread is about discussing MTA's dedication to education and ethics and about it's membership. CMT job and exam prep queries may be continued at CMT From MTA thread.)

The major problem learning Technical Analysis (TA) is the snake-oil vendor society. Even on this forum you must have seen lot of controversies because of people claiming tips or technical setups/ fundas. For eg. someone tells you a method to trade using MACD, you loose money and obviously you are irked. I see a lot of people go fed up over technical analysis. The problem here is that we don't have any standards defined for TA. You won't go for eye surgery to a pharmicist, howsoever nice he may sound; you'd look for an MBBS+PG. Like in any other profession we obviously need standards for technicians. The MTA has worked hard for it.

TA first came into public notice in 1948 Edwards & Magee published Technical Analysis of Stock Trends. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) came out in 1949 with a rule that all research in wallstreet, and here's the quote, "... has to be rooted in sound fundamental principles". Technical Analysts like Magee etc. fell into the background. great professors like Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett’s idol, got big play in the ‘50s or ‘60s. That was actually bad for many individual investors who got confused that a stock and company are the same. Now, real fundamental research departments started to develop in the early ‘70s where you had an analyst who followed an industry. Gradually there were academics doing research in price behavior of stocks (TA), but they were secretive and shy from media. For a long time, whenever TA got mentioned in the media it was met with sarcasm from Fundamental Aalysts. Sadly, many good authors like Elder Alexander, Larry Williams, Alan Farley, Jake Bernstein, Bill Williams, Dave Landry, Thomas Demark, Alan Andrews, Cynthia Kase, Joe Ross, BIll Wolfe, John Piper etc. added to chaos by indulging in vending rather than dedication to TA education.

In January of 2004 the SEC came out with rules required by the Sarbanes-Oxley law which states that all analysts on Wall Street have to take two exams -- the Series 86 and Series 87. The MTA spent a quarter of a million dollars on this process…, lawyers, academics…, and fought it through. And on December 17th, 2004, the MTA representatives made a presentation in front of twenty SEC lawyers, NASD lawyers, and New York Stock Exchange lawyers. They established, in a final presentation, the validity and the need for Technical Analysis. The SEC recommended Rule 344, which now reads that there are two analysts on Wall Street, one is a fundamental analyst who follows companies and is chartered by a CFA, the other one is a technical analyst who follows stocks and is chartered with a CMT. In February 2005, the SEC recognized levels 1 and 2 of the CMT exam as an alternative to the Series 86 Examination.

It has on board people like John Murphy,David Aronson, John Bollinger, Robert Pretcher, Steve Nison, Perry Kaufman, Charles Kirkpatrick etc.

Again I shall mention that it's all about standards of expertise and ethics. Almost half of its members are analysts working at esteemed positions in the finance industry. A good number are professional traders at instituitions.

MTA Membership: Being an affiliate with MTA helps you to connect to its vast network of professionals, seminars, updates in the field and Chapter activities. The MTA takes great care to enforce education directed twowards 'understanding of markets' rather than spoon fed trading setups. Among other benefits it's library contains about 4000 books of interest. It is in the process of being merged with the Baruch Library . I was living in NJ for a while and had a friend mailing books to me. Once their library goes online there will be 50 people joining in from my reference alone! Also I should add they have highly discounted fees for college students.

Better go through this: http://www.mta.org/eweb/DynamicPage....e=ProspectPage
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Disclaimer: This is not a commercial propaganda in any sense. The MTA is a non-profit professional organisation. I do not claim to be member/associate of MTA in any form. The information given hereby is collected from the pages of MTA website availabe for public view. Opinions may differ.

You touched a nerve here... sending u a PM.

First we should consider what role TA plays in trading. Many surveys indicate that almost all individual traders use some form of TA in making trading decisions. For eg. laws of trend dynamics": http://www.traderji.com/technical-an...ant#post162139. That is nothing more than old TA concepts. Not many will differ that one needs to be good in TA before even starting to trade with real money.

Now comes about choosing the channel to learn TA. ( I have been much busy for last one year, so some info might be outdated). Take a good look about every one selling TA in the Indian scenario. Out of theese the most formalized endaveour seems to comes from BIFM (http://www.bifm.edu.in/blbifm/index.asp). I recieved an offer to join as faculty for TA couse- duration 2 months. I declined the offer as the course content was insufficient, also it did not include many assignments required to successfully complete the course. They are charging 24,000 for a 32 hr. program, but unable to get accredition from any good instituition even years after starting the program. The MTA very clearly outweighs this. ( BIFM people please take my post in good faith, thanks Mr. Wadhwa, we need standards and accredetion).

Like beginner_av posted an alternative for joining could be getting the reading assignment (book list) and prepare all alone.

The MTA is a non-profit organization. The fees that you pay is used to hold seminars by inviting industry professionals, and in organizing chapter activities. Right now the MTA community in India is'nt much organized, so that may be a caveat. But again it's about being part of professional community. We will continue discussing about that.

BTW many individual traders in US and Australia do not appear for the CMT exams, they don't need the three letters with there name. But they continue being members with MTA for obvious benefits.

Thks,for the Info.

Thanks! Love the chart.

Ashishda, much happy to recieve that thanks.

@ skarpio, I can't see any chart.

I think he means that "Acceptance" image.

Image of the chart, to be pedantic

what about indian chapter? i am told.........its expected this year??
is anybody working on it

The guy who is responsible for it seems to work as fast as a snail. Other solutions are being worked out privately.